Westwood Presbyterian Church

September 7th, 2008

197 Browning  Boulevard, Winnipeg, Manitoba  R3K 0L1

REV. PETER BUSH's SERMONS

Principles for Successful Living 1: Find Your Passion - Jeremiah 1: 4-10, Psalm 8 and Matthew

 

I am not usually impressed by the quote "self help" movement, I find the movement far too interested in the "self' - and therefore selfish, self-centered, self-important, and self-actualizing. But when I came across Henry Cloud's "9 Things You Simply Must Do to Succeed in Love and Life" I was intrigued because the things that Cloud highlights are not the typical things you find discussed in "self help" books. One of the big differences is that Cloud is a Christian and has read the Bible and understands God's purposes in the world. That makes his book less about "self' and more about "God".

God made us, and God cares how we live our lives. I don't mean that God has a list of do's and don'ts and that God is keeping track of whether we do the 'right things or not. What I mean is that God wants our lives to be meaningful, fulfilling, significant. There are ways we were created to live, patterns that lead to meaningful lives - and we are invited to live out those patterns. Cloud helps us see those patterns. Cloud brings to his book years of work as a psychologist who has done counselling with numerous people. He observes people's lives. He knows that the patterns that God has for life are not just nice theory - they make a difference in real life.

Over the next two months we will explore the 9 things we simply must do - I invite you along for the adventure.

The first thing we must do is "Find our passion."

One of the tragedies of modern life is that life is passion-less, empty, boring. Apathy is everywhere, and when we meet someone who speaks with passion, who stirs passion in others, we are suspect. We were meant to live life with passion. Passion-less living is something the devil wants us to live - he wants us to live flat, uninteresting lives, because passion takes us to the heart of who we are - and that gets us in touch with why we were made - and that opens us up to relationship with God.

C. S. Lewis, author of the Narnia series that is being turned into movies, wrote a little book called "Screwtape Letters." The book is a series of letters from a well experienced devil to his nephew a younger, just beginning his work devil. Among the pieces of advice Screwtape gives his nephew is to never allow the human being the nephew is trying to lead on the road to hell - to never let the human develop a passion for anything. Screwtape goes on to tell how he once knew a devil whose human developed a passion for "liver and onions" and that was it. The human went over to follow God, simply through developing a passion for liver and onions.

When we find our passion, we begin to find what God has made us for - we begin to find our reason for being.

When Jeremiah was 13 or 14 years old, God called him and said, "Before you were born, I called you to be a prophet, to be someone who speaks for me." Jeremiah replied, "I am only a boy, how can I possibly do what you ask." And God's response was essentially this, "I have chosen you, I have put in you the passion to do this work. It is why you are." God gave to Jeremiah the passion and the ability to be a prophet for God. And if we were to read through the book of Jeremiah, we would discover that Jeremiah finds his deepest meaning in life, he greatest fulfillment when he is doing his work as a prophet. That does not mean that being a prophet was easy - it was not; it does not mean there were not huge personal costs to being a prophet - there were. But even though Jeremiah tried to do other things, to run away from God's call- Jeremiah discovered that doing anything else did not have the satisfaction, the meaningfulness that being a prophet did.

We have not all been called to be prophets - but we have all been called to find our passion and live it. To use the abilities that God has given, and the passion that He has put in our hearts and souls and move on it.

 

So how do we do that - how do we find our passion?

 

One way to find our passion, is to think about the things that we do in life and ask, of those things which of them lifts my spirit, which of them do I just thrill to do. For some people it is balancing the check -book - they get a sense of satisfaction, a joy, out of the process of working with numbers and getting it right. Other people find joy in cooking a meal, they thrill at the prospect of planning and preparing a meal and setting it out and watching others eat what they have prepared. Still others find they love to listen to other people talk about their lives, they love to listen and encourage others to talk. And we could go on and on. The invitation is to find things in our lives that we thrill to do - for those may be signs of where our passion is. Because God does not give us a passion to do something that we really don't want to do. God will not call us is a task that we find boring and meaningless, God calls us to roles and tasks that demand our all, our best.

In the movie "Chariots of Fire" the Scottish runner, Eric Liddell and his sister are talking. Eric's sister is trying to convince Eric to give up running so that he can focus his energy on preparing to be a missionary. Eric turns to her and says, "But when I run, I feel God's pleasure." Liddell went on to win the gold medal in the 200 meters at the 1924 Olympics, and then be became a missionary to China. When we are doing the thing that we have been called to do - when we find that passion - we will feel the pleasure of God.

I can hear people thinking, "But I don't feel that way about anything in my life. There is nothing that gives me that kind of joy." Sadly in our world, where passion has been beaten out of us, where there is no reward for being passionate - we may have so buried our passion that we feel little joy about any of the things that we do.

Another question may be helpful - "What is it that wrecks you heart?" "What when you look out at the world, this community, our city - do you say to yourself - 'There is something wrong here, this should not be this way.'?" "What is it that keeps you awake at night, wishing it were different?" This may be God's call- this may be an invitation to make a difference in the world.

Maybe when we hear about children who struggle in school, our hearts yearn to do something, we want to help them - that could be God's call? Or maybe it is when we

hear about lonely seniors we feel something inside of us break - that could be God's call? And the list ofthings could go on and on - the homeless, recent arrivals in our country trying to learn English, seniors who need help with basic maintenance in their homes - all of these things break our hearts - we want to make a difference. What is it that moves you? This could be call of God.

Matthew - the tax collector that Jesus called - had a passion. His heart was broken by the situation his fellow tax collectors were in. He knew about the pain and hurt of being a tax collector - and so he invited his fellow tax collectors to come and meet Jesus at a dinner party. Matthew responded to the thing that wrecked him - and he did something about it - he lived his passion.

There is another way that we may find our passion. People might come up to us and say, "When you do such and such, you come alive. You obviously love doing that." Sometimes we can not see the thing that is our passion - we need the help of other people to open our eyes. We need to hear in the statements that other people make - that they may be able to see what we cannot see - where our passion is - what it is that we have been called to.

We need one another to help each other see and follow through on the passions that God has put into our lives. We have a role to play to saying to others, you are good at this - is God calling you to do more of this? We need to say to people who are living out their passion - "Thank you for finding you passion and living it." We all have a role to play in encouraging one another in living out the things God has called us to.

In these ways we find the Holy Spirit nudging us towards our Passion - towards the thing that God has gifted us to do. For our passion is not about serving us - it is about finding the calling God in our lives. Finding our passion is about fulfilling the ability and the gifts that God has given to us.

 

When we have found our passion - what then?

 

1. Each day we need to find ways to do something that builds into our passion - into the abilities and goals that God has given us. Once we have found our passion - our calling ­it is not as though that is all we are going to be doing for the rest of our lives. We will end up doing things that are not about our passion - but are things we need to do nonetheless. But each day we need to find things that are connected to our passion.

If our passion is preaching - not every day do I get to preach. But every day I can do something that is about preaching, through reading, through spending time thinking and praying about the sermon, I can make preaching something that is part of everyday. That means that everyday I get to feel the pleasure of God that I am using the gifts and passion He has given me.

 

2. We have God-given abilities that connect to our passions that allow us to do them well. But all abilities need to be exercised if we are going to get better at using them. Athletes like Wayne Gretzky, Michael Jordan, and Tiger Woods are extraordinarily gifted, but they also practice their gifts each and every day. They were the first to the practice and the last ones to finish. In the same way, our God given abilities need to be exercised, used, developed, made stronger so that we can fulfill the passion God has called us to with great ability.

 

3 . We need to play to our passion. There are many things that call for our time and our attention - and we need to choose among them. When we have found our passion, it makes choosing easier. Those things that call on us - that play to our passion are things we need to say "yes" to - those things that do hot play to our passions, to the abilities that God has given, that don't wake within us a sense that this is God's call- are things we need to say "no" to. When we say "no" - we are not saying "no" because it is wrong - it is harder to choose between two goods then to choose between a good and a bad. When we say "no" - we are saying "no" - so that we have the energy and strength to give to those things that we have said "yes" to.

 

God invites us to use the gifts and abilities He has put in our lives to live out the passion - the call he has issued to us. We are invited to pray with boldness that God will show us our passion.  We are also invited to pray with boldness for the courage to follow through on the passion God gives to us. Finding fulfillment and meaning in giving our all to what He has given for us to do.